A stay-at-home call is being observed in Gondar in Ethiopia to express anger over the government’s campaign to dissolve a paramilitary group and crackdown on recent violence in the area.
Businesses have been closed and roads blocked in the historic city in the Amhara region.
It comes as Ethiopia’s state-appointed rights watchdog called for more dialogue to ease tensions between the province and central government.
The country’s regional states have had their own special forces to protect their borders, and to fight rebels - but the government has moved to bring them under the military and police.
Huge anti-government protests broke out last month in Amhara over the issue and tensions have intensified after a senior figure within the ruling party was gunned down in the region last week.
The government blamed “extremist forces” for the killing and plotting to overthrow the regional government.
The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said in a statement that some of the clashes had involved heavy weaponry and the main road leading from the capital Addis Ababa to Dessie, a major city in Amhara, had frequently been closed.
Source: BBC